


A Long Way From Home

by g00dproblemstohave



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Physics, Stars and Shit, rockets yeet yeet, women in STEM
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-01-28 07:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12601280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/g00dproblemstohave/pseuds/g00dproblemstohave
Summary: Maeve Kennedy Gallagher, a city girl with some power tools and a telescope.Takashi Shirogane, a boy who's only known hard-work and aspirations.Matthew Holt, a kid with some memes and an unhackable brain.The three of them come together when they start their first year the the Galaxy Garrison, an academy meant to train the next generation of space explorers. If only stars really could tell the future.





	1. Keychain

Dorothy said it first: There’s no place like home.

Wandering around Gallagher’s auto mechanic shop with Frank Sinatra playing in the back during my never-ending shift, now that’s home. Hover bikes, cars, anti-gravity motor development, solar charged wheel rotation (those got tricky to work on outside the garage), anything you could see on the street was filtered through here at one point or another.

Home.

“Fly me to the moon,” I mumbled along with the song, spinning a wrench around in my hand. The bun on my head weighed an extra three pounds as I tilted my head side to side, skipping aimlessly.

“Let me play among the stars.” I waved at one of my dad’s workers, Max. He smiled, waved back, and then kept talking to a customer.

“Let me see what spring is like on,” I did a little spin in place, “Jupiter and Mars.”

Every one of my steps bounced, bending the worn rubber of my boots and the run-down material of my coveralls.

“In other words,” Max and I made eye-contact as I started walking backwards, still bouncing around. “Hold my hand,” I sang into the wrench. He rolled his eyes, withholding his laugh. The customer he was speaking to turned around with an amused grin, shaking her head.

“In other words,” I spun one time around closer to Max, dramatically leaning closer to the wrench like it really was a microphone on a stand in a dimly lit room on a short stage with people watching from little round tables with cheap cocktails.

I’ve got dreams too.

“Baby, kiss me,” I winked at Max, then spun away again, heading towards the garage. I stared around the shop, the ceiling, the walls, the floor, and the crates, just all of it. “Fill my heart with song, and let me sing forever more,” my voice dropped more melodically, singing to myself and the private world around me.

“You are all I long for, all I worship…“ The sound cut off from the speakers. My steps seemed to stop themselves, the rubber catching on the floor and nearly tripping me... myself?

“Maeve,” a voice came over the speaker.

“Here we go,” I rolled my eyes, already starting to turn around.

“Come to Mr. Gallagher’s office promptly.”

“Promptly? Who says that anymore?”

Max waved at me as I walked by him again, taunting humor in his eyes. “What’d you do this time?”

I shrugged. “The usual, probably.” I stopped walking and did my best impersonation. “You know, Maeve, I’m really starting to think you’re not taking your grades seriously enough. You really want to be an engineer huh? For the Garrison? What kind of drugs are you smoking because roll me a damn blunt.”

Max snorted. “The day your dad talks like that is the day my sorry ass will go back to school.”

“Dropout,” snickering, I started to walk again to the office. “Slán!”

“Bye to you too.”

I hummed the rest of Sinatra’s Fly me to the Moon before I reached the main executive office. The door opened with a mild creak, closing itself behind me. Old school: the best way to describe Gallagher’s auto shop.

Don’t get me wrong, we could fix anything you throw at us, or at the very least make it look cooler than it did before. But holy hell, old school is an understatement.

“Hello, Maeve,” Ms. Antique spoke monotonously from behind her brick of a computer.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Antique!”

Ms. Antique was very specific about the pronunciation of her name. “Ant-ee-q,” she’d say to Max and me over and over. But with how ancient the old bat was, she was the definition of antique, ant-ee-k.

“Can I go in now?”

She looked at me over her dusty glasses, and all I could hope for was that my smile was bright enough to dim the evil spirits that surely lurked in her conscience.

“Go ahead.”

“Maeve, come on in,” a voice came from behind another old door.

“Already on my way!”

Fortunately, it was a short and quick walk to and through the next door.

“Maeve.”

“…Dad.”

The room was quiet for a minute.

“Okay, why were you so creepy and ominous there?”

My dad raised his eyebrow. “I was being ominous?”

“Like, super ominous.” I imitated the sound of the speaker with my hand over my mouth. “Maeve, come to Mr. Gallagher’s office. Then I walk in and you’re all… Maeve, I’ve been expecting you.”

“I didn’t say that last part!” he laughed through his tiny accent, his t’s coming off very annunciated.

“But it was, like, totally implied!”

We laughed together for a moment before I plopped down in the chair opposite of his desk.

“So… why am I here? Did I do something wrong?”

He shook his head. “I just wanted to tell you how proud I am of you for winning your dance competition last week.”

I turned pink, almost disappointed. “Thanks, dad.”

“You know,” he pulled out a picture of me as a little girl with my first trophy, all dolled up in one of my mother’s ancient Irish dresses with long songs and black shoes. “It feels like yesterday we were teaching you the fiddle.”

“Well, you did help me tune yesterday.”

He raised an eyebrow at me, and I mimicked the same face back.

“Not to sound pretentious, daidí, but is that really all you called me here for? I was working, you know.” 

He sighed. “Well… there is something else.”

“Of course there is.”

“Your mother is… shall we say… concerned.”

“Concerned?”

“With you.”

“Me?” I pointed to myself in mild shock. “I’ve practiced my fiddle every day this week and won my jig, got a perfect score on my advanced Physics test, and went on a date with a nice Catholic boy two days ago. What could she possibly be concerned about?”

“Maeve… you’ve been spending an awful lot of time in here lately.”

“Did all the things I just said fly in your ear and evaporate?”

“She’s worried you’re not keeping up with all your grades.”

“A perfect score. In advanced physics.”

“She thinks you’re losing faith in our traditions… our customs.”

“Why do I even bother?”

“She wants you to quit the auto shop.”

The world around me froze. Record Scratch, Freeze Frame moment for me.

“What?”

“We both think that-“

“We!? You think I should stop working here too!?”

“Max is plenty of help around here.”

“Just Max, huh?”

At the attitude in my voice, my father gave me a stern look.

“Daidí, I just think that I’ve been balancing everything exceptionally.”

“Exceptionally, perhaps. But we want you to have a good education! Go into a business or… or some kind of specialized profession that will always be needed!”

I bit my tongue, then spoke carefully. “This isn’t Ireland a century ago. Everything is changing! How many people do you know that can build a vintage car from scratch with the same skill they can repair a modern hover bike? I think that’s a pretty specialized profession!”

“Maeve Kennedy Gallagher.”

I shut the hell up.

“You will listen to me and your mother. You will find a better job better suited to a better future. I don’t need your help around here.”

I recoiled, narrowing my eyes. Looking down at myself, I was still in my coveralls with my name patched onto the chest. The wrench was in my pocket. The boots had oil stains.

Home.

I nodded curtly.

My dad sighed, seemingly upset. “Maeve… I know you love this place… but sometimes, you have to give things up in life.”

Like tradition?

“I understand, daidí.”

“Good.”

It was quiet.

“You can go finish your shift for today.”

That was almost a joke, as I practically slept in the shop. I practiced my fiddle in the office, did my homework behind the front desk. On long nights, I’d even record myself reading my notes out loud and play that over the speaker in the garage.

My shift here really never ended.

I got up and walked out. Point blank.

Give up mechanics?

Max met me outside Ms. Antique’s reception desk and we went to the front desk by the main entrance without saying a single word.

“I’m guessing he didn’t ask you to roll him a blunt.”

“Ding, ding. You are correct,” I deadpanned.

“It can’t be that bad Maeve.”

I leaned against the counter, crossing my arms over my chest and looking down at the floor. My floor. My own little moon bounce dance floor for me to skip, hop, and slide on. Not mine anymore.

“Parents won’t let me work here anymore.”

Max scoffed, at a loss for words for only the briefest second. “You mean you just got fired from your father’s business? Don’t you Irish people worship family?”

I clenched my jaw. “Not really a business, apparently.”

“So they’re just kicking out one of their most efficient workers?”

“No, you’re still here.”

He smirked. “Very funny,

“They think I’m not focusing on the other, more important aspects of life while I’m here.”

“Didn’t you just get a perfect score-“

“On my advanced physics test! I know! Right!? You’d think that shows the basic foundation of intelligence!” I threw my hands up in the air before leaning my elbows back on the counter. “I even won my jig too! That makes my mom happier than a man who catches a hare stealing his cow’s milk!”

“Okay, listen, I get that you have weird custom juju, but what the ever loving fuck does that mean?”

“Long story. A woman turns into a hare to steal milk. That’s beside the point!”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m not giving this place up! I grew up with tools as teething rings!”

“More like rosin, but keep going.”

“I literally have two wrenches on me at this exact moment.”

“Wow, it’s like you fix stuff or something.”

“Your sass is funny, but not appreciated,” I pursed my lips, crossing my arms again.

Max winked. “They call me charming.” He swooped in and mimicked my pose on the counter. “Prince Charming.”

“I might puke on your coveralls, Charming.”

“Look, Maeve,” he chewed on his bottom lip and looked up at the rafters. “I’ll miss your Sinatra Sing-Alongs.”

I didn’t know what I expected to hear, but maybe something a little more emotional. A dramatic love confession? Who knows?

“Well, those’ll be gone tomorrow o’clock.”

I turned my head to look back at the desk and saw a set of keys on a key ring.

Now, keys were very common in this shop. Keys accessed vehicles. Sometimes we had to move vehicles. Keys needed to be in close range to do the moving of said vehicles.

This set of keys had a keychain.

‘Galaxy Garrison: Next Generation of Space Explorers’ engraved on a small metal keychain.

“Hey, Max?”

“Yeah?”

“Rockets need engineers right?”


	2. Ellipses

‘To apply through standard admission to the Galaxy Garrison, a potential student must adhere to the following guidelines:’

“Ms. Gallagher.”

I looked up from the glow of my phone, shutting off the screen. “Yes, Mrs. Masters?”

“On your phone? Is today’s lesson too boring for you?”

People think I don’t like old ladies because of movies with evil stepmothers. It’s actually because the two oldest women I’ve ever meant were Ms. Antique and Mrs. Masters.

“No, I was reviewing the vocabulary material you sent out.”

“Were you really?”

“Yes, Mrs. Masters.”

I’ll admit, I was a bit more… snarky than one might say was necessary. But you’d think after doing so well in her class, she would just assume I would know a thing or two about Physics.

“Then you’ll have no problem explaining Kepler’s Three Laws of Planetary motion.” She smirked triumphantly.

“Those weren’t on the vocab sheet, Mrs. Masters,” I sat up straighter, spinning my tablet pen around my fingers. The other students in the classroom were bored. Kids here either took advanced physics because they needed another class or because they assumed they were the next Einstein.

“Well if you’re too good to listen in class, I’m sure you learned them on your own.”

Normally, I would let a little confrontation like this slide. I don’t like to look for trouble, but I will sure as hell grab it by the front of its collar and beat it down if it comes looking for me.

“Kepler’s First Law: The Law of Ellipses.” I stood up and walked to the front of the room, writing down the law on the electronic screen with my finger. “This describes the path in which planets orbit the sun. An ellipse, if you would.”

“To have an ellipse,” I continued, staring at the students in the room and not once at Mrs. Masters, “the sum of the distances from every point on the curve to two other points is a constant.”

A student raised their hand. Mrs. Masters looked beyond pissed.

“Yes?” I asked, pausing my explanation that students were already copying.

“Are the two points specific, or can they be selected from anywhere on the curve?”

“Excellent question! The two points are specific, and they are called the ‘Foci’,” I wrote the word down on the board. “The foci are the two points in the middle of an ellipse, and the closer they are together, the more closely the ellipse is to a circle. To have a perfect circle, the two foci will be in identical positions.”

“So basically,” a girl who sat in the back started, “the law just describes the planets moving around the sun.”

I moved my head side to side, pondering the truth of that statement. “Well, yes. That would be the most simplified definition of the law, though I would try to remember ‘ellipses’.”

“Ms. Gallagher, that’s quite enough,” Mrs. Masters walked back to the front of the room. “Take your seat.”

“But, Mrs. Masters, I haven’t even started the second or third law!” my face mocked one of fear, and the students snickered. “What will these poor students do if I don’t teach them?”

“They’ll listen to me. Take your seat.” She stared directly into my eyes. I stared back. Finally, I sighed.

“Okay.”

I went back to my desk and sat down, smiling to myself. I picked my pen back up and started spinning it again, leaving my phone in my bag. For the rest of the period, I did nothing but track Mrs. Masters back and forth across the room. Every now and then she’d shoot me a look, a warning sign, a ‘don’t you dare embarrass me in front of the class again or so help me God’ look.

Her eyes were very explicit. 

“Tomorrow morning I expect all of your lab reports from last week to be turned in at the beginning of class, otherwise I will not accept them.”

I stood up and tucked my tablet into my messenger bag, flipping the flap closed and slinging it over my shoulder.

“Maeve?”

I turned around to the voice. It was some girl who sat next to me.

“Um… yeah?”

“I was wondering if you could tutor. Or if you offered tutoring… I guess.”

She looked shy. Nervous. Kind of weird. Like, I eat ribs with a fork and knife weird, not like I eat glue weird. Strange.

“Um… sure?”

She squinted. “Do you phrase everything like a question?”

“Possibly?”

She smiled. “Okay.”

Uncomfortable. This conversation was uncomfortable.

“So… when are you free?” she asked, holding the straps of her bag over her shoulder.

“Well, most days I’m in the-“

I had to stop myself. I cleared my throat.

My job isn’t at the shop anymore.

“I’m free almost whenever.”

“Almost… whenever?”

“Yeah, almost whenever.”

“Uh… You know, never mind. I think Mrs. Masters is talking about hosting a class call for extra help so…”

“Oh, yeah... Totally.”

She smiled tightly and nodded. “Bye, Maeve.”

For a second during that class period, in front of the classroom, I felt like I was actually talking to people. Getting through to them, in their head. I forgot that normal conversations usually end up with the other person walking away from me as quickly as possible.

I sighed. School’s stupid.

The bell rang and the doors to the classroom opened. Kids pooled out. I waited in the back.

School’s over. I guess I could practice for a while. I don’t have to go to the shop. If I made dinner tonight, would that make mom happy?

I sighed again.

Stupid prejudice against mechanics.

“Ms. Gallagher?”

I swear the next time I hear someone call me Ms. Gallagher-

“Yes, Mrs. Masters?” I spun on my heels, facing her in the empty classroom.

She pulled her glasses over her eyes and interlocked her fingers over her stomach. “Have a seat.”

I resisted the urge to groan. The seat skidded on the floor as I slumped into it, resting my bad on my lap.

On reflex, I had to ask “Did I do something wrong?”

She shut off the screen and started searching for a computer chip on her desk. 

“Could you help me grade my regular Physics classes’ tests from last week?”

“Sorry, what?”

She looked over the frame of her glasses. “Would you mind helping me grade my regular Physics classes’ tests from last week?”

I felt like I was about to get pranked. There had to be a camera watching me. I narrowed my eyebrows and searched the room, but I didn’t see any.

“Like, actually?”

“Yes, actually,” she mimicked my tone of voice.

Oh. So that’s how annoying that is.

I thought for a second.

“I guess… on one condition.”

She seemed mildly exasperated but nowhere near agitated. I knew agitated. “That condition being?”

“The Galaxy Garrison requires teacher recommendations, and I think you, being a lovely physics teacher, would be the perfect candidate.”

“So that’s what you were looking at.”

I shrugged.

She got up and set a tiny chip on my desk. “I’ll write you a recommendation.”

“And I’ll grade your tests.” I took out my tablet and inserted the chip, opening the file and looking through the test program.

“This doesn’t make us friends,” she mumbled, sitting down at her desk once more. “I could have you suspended for all your sass.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Mrs. Masters.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

The walk home was boring. More than boring. There were no street races, no kids running with their own agenda, no bikes, no ice cream trucks, no kids on their front yards. I didn’t notice how quiet it was until I realized I wasn’t in a hurry to be anywhere.

For the past five minutes I kicked a rock out in front of me, moving it with me as I got further down the street. I easily could have gotten a ride some way or another, but honestly walking home is some of the only mobile exercise I get.

Home.

Home is still the auto shop…

It’s only one turn away from the house. No one could be mad if I just stopped by, right?

I held onto the top of my messenger back and started to jog, the wind filtering through the cheap fabric of my leggings. Goosebumps rose on my skin, partially from the weather, but also from the excitement of being where I really wanted to be.

My bright white sneakers stood out on the dust of the floor. I was never allowed to wear them to the shop, in case they got dirty, but special circumstances, you know?

Max was standing behind the desk, one hand pressed on his hair and the other fervently writing. He looked stressed.

“Max?”

He barely looked up. “Hey, Maeve.”

I clicked my tongue, rocking back and forth on my feet.

This is awkward.

“One day without me and the place falls apart, huh?” I joked, trying to lighten the mood.

He didn’t answer for exactly 13 seconds, then looked up quickly and smiled. “Totally.”

Max went back to writing.

I pursed my lips. “How’s the garage looking today? Full?”

“Maeve, I’m kind of busy right now.”

“I get it.” I hopped up and sat on the edge of the counter, not saying anything while swinging my legs back and forth. “Are you just recording costs, or-“

“Maeve, I can’t think of another nice, subtle way to ask you to shut up, so please, shut up.” He didn’t even glance at me this time.

“Yeah, I’ll just head home.”

“You left your bike on the rack out front.”

“Thanks.”

At least I won’t have to walk the rest of the way home. I skidded my feet on the floor, spinning once in place every now and then, humming some old Sinatra tunes. Good shit.

“And now, the end is near,” I mumbled, going through the doors. “And so, I face the final curtain.” My voice nearly cracked on the note, but I held it, making my way to my bright green bike with a bright orange basket. An eyesore for sure.

I swung one leg over and stood on the pedals, biking my way to the house without touching the seat.

Max didn’t mean to be snarky, I thought. He’s just being a prick. He’s totally on his period. Totally.

I sat back on the seat and took my hands off the handlebars, still steering straight. Just not my week, I guess.

Gravel bumped the bike off course as I went into the driveway, forcing me to hold the handlebars to make it to the garage. I popped the kickstand and got off, trudging into the house after blowing a kiss to our wall piece of Brighid, the goddess of hearth and home.

“Báire, is that you?”

“Yes, mamaí!” I shouted back, taking my shoes off before entering.

“I’m heading out for groceries. I’ll be back soon!”

“Okay, mamaí!”

She came around the corner and swooped down to kiss the top of my head before rushing out behind me.

The house was warm. I walked in and noticed the fireplace was lit. Dad must still be at the shop. I sighed for what felt like the billionth time.

“My friend, I’ll say it clear,” I sang out loud, sliding on the floor to my room with my fuzzy socks. “I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain.”

“I’ve lived a life that’s full… I’ve traveled each, and every highway.”

“But more…” I dropped my bag on my carpeted floor and flopped on my bed staring at my ceiling.

“Much more than this…”

“I did it my way.”


	3. Applied Forces

“Maeve, Maeve, Maeve!” a tiny force jumping up and down on the bed bounced me in my spot, waking me up from my unexpected nap.

“Hnng, what?” I squinted my eyes open.

“Maeve, wake up! It’s dinner time!”

The tiny voice was my little sister, Shea. She had it way worse than I did when it came to substitute teachers marking attendance. Her first year in Middle School was when she stopped saying ‘no, not sh-ee-a, it’s sh-ay.’

And now she’s taller than me while still managing to be three years younger.

“Maeve?” she called out again, still standing over me on my mattress. With her dance shoes.

“Get your nasty shoes off my bed, I know exactly what studio those were in and that floor is too damn dirty for these sheets!” As I spoke, I sat up and lifted by the hips, dropping her on the floor and wiping off the dirt from my comforter with a single arm. “Go take your shoes and leave them by the door!”

She rolled her eyes dramatically, crossing her tiny thin arms over her equally tiny chest. “Who are you, mamaí?”

I grabbed the closest thing to my hand, conveniently a book, and smacked her with it on the shoulder. “Don’t track dirt in the house!”

“Or what!?”

I smirked, putting the book down. “Daidí!” I shouted.

Shea’s mouth opened in shock. “You didn’t.”

“Oh, I totally just did.”

She quickly took off her shoes and threw them in the closet just as Dad walked in, his auto shop hat still on his head.

“What is it, girls?”

“Can I take Shea out to dinner tonight with my friends?” I asked, smiling sweetly. Shea grinned innocently, turning to stand next to me. She and I both knew that going out to dinner meant sister time. And sister time was the best time.

“Please, Daidí, we haven’t had time together in so long!”

“School for me has been so busy,” I added.

“And time at the studio has doubled since the spring show auditions!” she guilt-tripped. Yeah. That’s a verb.

“Oh, come on, Shea, they’re hardly auditions,” I scoffed.

I could see her glare at me from the corner of her eyes, but we both looked at Dad together, putting on our best pouting faces.

“Please?” I pushed, holding my hands under my chin.

His face was the epitome of ‘done.’

“Only if you two are the ones who tell your mother that you won’t eat the food she made.” And with that, he walked off.

Shea and I snickered with each other, doing giddy little dances in place and high fiving each other repeatedly.

“You go tell mamaí, I have to go change.” She grabbed her dance shoes from the closet and skittered off to her room across the hall.

I pursed my lips.

Leaving me with the hard job. Classic Shea.

Rolling out my shoulders, I grabbed a gray cardigan to put over my short sleeve shirt and made my way to the kitchen. Stuff had definitely been cooking, but who knows what it was from smell alone.

“Mamaí?” I called out.

“Yes, Báire?” she called back. I got around the corner to see her in an apron with two oven mitts and a hot pan. “Dinner’s ready, where’s Shea?”

“Oh, actually I was going to ask if I could take Shea out for dinner.”

The normally loose lines on my mother’s face tightened into a look of near disappointment. “Maeve, I already made all of this food…”

“I appreciate all the effort so much, Mamaí, so much, and I promise I will eat it in my lunch every day this week, but Shea and I haven’t had time with just us for so long!” I put my hands back into the same begging position as I had with Dad.

She sighed, setting down the pan. At that very moment Shea slid on the floor behind me, stopping just to my right. “Please, mamaí?” she begged the same way I did, and there we were, two sisters that had mastered the art of success.

“Not tonight.”

What.

“But ma-“ Shea started.

“No buts!”

I resisted snorting.

“We have not had a good family dinner recently because of all this practice and school and work. We should eat at the table together tonight.”

That’s that. Mamaí’s word is final.

“Okay,” Shea and I both dejectedly began setting the table, sharing pissy looks every now and then.

“Girls! Come get food!”

Okay, yeah so for a city house, our house kind of broke the standard of ‘small.’

From the dining room, you couldn’t even see the kitchen. Long hallways connected different parts of the house, a plethora of doors on either side. It’s not like we had the money to buy it. Quite the contrary. We inherited it from a billion generations ago and couldn’t morally sell it. Since we technically owned the property, no one evicted us, and it was too far away for the government to show up with some cash and claim Eminent Domain.

“Coming!” Shea and I shouted in sync. Immediately we both raced to the kitchen, trying to outrun each other. At the last stride, I grabbed her ponytail and pulled, giving me just enough of an advantage to reach the counter first with my shorter arms.

“Ha! I win! You lose! I win! I’m the alpha sibling!” I cackled, taunting her as I danced around to the food.

Shea scowled at me, rubbing her scalp. “Cheater.”

“Sorry, what was that? All I heard was WINNER!”

“Maeve, stop tormenting your sister,” our mother scolded, walking behind me and yanking my ponytail backwards.

“Ow!”

“Karma,” Shea mocked, then came around to stand next to me. We served our plates, piling on Sheppard’s Pie. Reaching over one another’s arms, we finally got what we wanted and hauled back to the table, nudging each other the entire way.

Mom and Dad were already sitting there, waiting for us to begin eating.

“Shall we say a prayer?”

Everyone nodded and my mother reached out her hands. Around the table, our hands were interlocked. We normally prayed silently at our house, ending at our own time as we all had out own things to pray about.

I guess I could pray for entry to the Garrison. Maybe my job back at the auto shop. Is that praying or complaining?

“Amen,” I said first, not really praying for anything legitimate.

“Amen,” Shea followed.

“Amen,” our parents said in sync.

Immediately afterwards, Shea and I grabbed our forks and began digging in like animals. But not total animals. We did have some manners.

“How was dance today, Shea?” our mom asked, taking a small, quaint bite out off of her fork.

“Very good! Cecilia and I got paired to choreograph and Old-Style step dance.”

I raised an eyebrow, asking “You’re doing a group choreo for Old-Style?”

“I know, I don’t like it either. I’d rather do modern for group, especially cause everyone will insist that other people are in there space, but really you aren’t supposed to have space for Old-Style! It’s limited space!” Shea slammed her fork down to emphasize her aggravation. “It’s literally meant for limited space.”

I rolled my eyes, smiling. “Don’t get too upset.”

“What about you Maeve? How was school?” our dad asked, giving Mom enough time to sip wine and take another bite of pie.

I shrugged. “Alright. I stayed after a bit to help Mrs. Masters grade some physics tests.”

This time Shea raised an eyebrow. “I thought she was, like, bat shit crazy.”

“Language, Shea Rowena,” Mom glared at her.

“Sorry, Mamaí,” she mumbled.

“Yeah,” I interjected, “she totally is, but she needed help and I’m probably the smartest student she has.”

“And the humblest.”

“Shut up, Shea.”

She kicked my leg under the table and we both chuckled, shoving more Sheppard’s Pie in our faces. “Are you going to the studio this week?” Mom asked another question.

Can’t a family enjoy some dinner in peaceful, comfortable silence?

“Probably, if I have time.”

“You have plenty more time than before,” Dad offered, sipping his own wine.

I turned to look at him, giving my best friendly, yet pissed off look. “Yup. How was the shop today?”

“Oh, well quite busy actually. Poor Max was run ragged.”

“Mhm.” I swallowed the food that I had been talking through and leaned back in my chair. “I have something else to announce too.”

“Really? And that is?”

“Well,” I glanced back and forth between my parents, then at Shea. “I’m applying for the Garrison.”

Talk about being able to hear a pin drop. Honestly, I could literally hear the blood pumping in my ears.

My mother cleared her throat. “Come again?”

“Maeve,” Shea shook her head, the tiniest look of betrayal on her face. “I thought that was just some dream of yours.”

That’s offensive. “I mean… yeah. But it’s a dream I’m going through with.”

“Maeve, we never shut down that dream because that’s all it was,” my mother’s voice dominated the room, and I suddenly felt the mistake of bringing it up. “But now, you have to realize how irresponsible that idea is?”

“Seriously? Going to the best academy for space exploration is… irresponsible.”

“Maeve, your future does not lie doing such… such…” she flailed her hands around, looking for the word. “Whimsical ideals! It isn’t like you will do anything important to gain recognition and raise money to provide for a family!”

I crossed my arms, narrowing my eyes. “The faith you have in me is outstanding, mother. Truly.”

“This is no time for your sarcasm, Maeve! I cannot believe you would throw away our traditions, everything your father and I have worked for just so you can go to some Space School!”

“Traditions!? What does that have to do with anything!? What am I throwing away!?”

“All of it! You should be focusing on a good steady career-“

“Who says this isn’t a good, steady career!?”

“I say it is!”

“Oh, so because I’m not working in a factory for fifty cents an hour means that I’m not following tradition? My mistake.”

Our shouting match halted when Mother pushed her chair back, scraping it against the floor, and standing up. She slammed the palms of her hands down on the table and stared down at me. I stared back.

“Corrine,” from across the room, Dad finally spoke up. “Let her go.”

“You cannot be serious.”

“I’m absolutely serious. You can’t stop her, and I cannot either.” 

Shea had been looking down at the table, her hands in her lap.

I nodded politely at my father. “Thank you, Daidí.”

“What are you trying to do, Neil? Make me the bad guy?”

My father visibly huffed, his chest rising dramatically. “No, I just realize that this might be the best thing for Maeve.”

Shea and I made eye-contact across the table. She looked away.

“Why is this such a big deal?” I asked quietly. Both parents looked at me.

“Because it isn’t responsible,” my mother answered immediately.

“Really?” I questioned, staring directly into her crystal blue eyes: almost clear, but sharp and piercing.

“Yes, really.”

I nodded my head, moving to look at my lap. “Okay then.”

Silence. Completely tense, awkward silence. Super, extremely, superfluously awkward silence.

“I’m gonna go submit my application now,” I announced, tapping my mouth with a napkin and standing up gracefully. Then, I tucked in my chair, grabbed my plate, and walked out to the kitchen.

If Frank Sinatra could do it his way, you bet your goddamn ass I’ll do it my way.


	4. Center Fleeing

Post dinner was… tense, to say the least. I had done as I said and gone to my room with the intent of sending in an application, but even with the required information set up and prepared to send, I couldn’t bring myself to submit it with the yelling of my parents in the background.

Apparently a big house doesn’t mute the sound of Irish screeching. Actually, it even echoes.

I leaned my elbows on my desk, staring at my computer. It was mostly handmade, funnily enough. We’d originally had it as a family computer, but when it broke I claimed it as my own and fixed it all up.

Subconsciously, I patted the screen frame fondly. Realizing what I was doing, I shook my head and sighed, standing up and staring at the lit monitor from across the room.

It glowed menacingly, daring me to hit that big red button.

I stood for several moments, then flopped onto my bed, screaming into my pillow. Obviously it muffled itself, so I let it go on for a solid thirteen seconds at least before I stopped.

“Son of a bitch,” I shouted into the pillow with my eyes open, watching the purple flashing blobs shift around in the black.

“That’s not really a lady-like way to talk.”

I moved my head to look up at Shea, who was closing the door behind her. I put my head back in the pillow. “Are you gonna yell at me?”

She sighed, shifting the mattress next to me. “No.”

“Then why are you here?”

I could feel her move around. “Because I want you to know that I think you should do it.”

I moved my head again, facing her. “Seriously?”

She nodded, her lips pressed tightly together. “Yeah.”

I sat up and sat crisscross. “Why?”

Shea mimicked my seating position across from me. “You love tinkering, you love science, you like hard-work and the smell of oil and gasoline and the sound of metal on metal…” She rubbed her hands together. “I don’t know. It’s what’s best for you.”

My bottom lip began to quiver. “You don’t think I’m abandoning you?”

Shea leaned over and held my head to her chest. I let myself fall into her, wrapping my arms around her stomach. “No. Are you?”

“No, never, not in a billion years.” I sniffed and wiped my nose with the sleeve of my cardigan.

“Then I don’t feel like you’re abandoning me at all…” she stroked my hair softly, leaning her chin on top of my head. “I know that you’ll take your fiddle, and I know that you’ll take your dancing shoes, and I know you’ll take all your weird dreamcatchers and yarn and your creepy posters of Frank Sinatra.”

“They aren’t creepy!” I laughed through my near-almost-close to the surface sobs.

“Maeve, they’re totally creepy.”

I tilted my head up to look at her. Shea was already smiling warmly at me.

“You’re a good little sister.”

“Only good?”

I rolled my eyes. “The best,” I clapped, “around.”

“That’s more like it.”

I laughed into her chest, sniffling a little. After a few minutes of us sitting like that quietly, I pulled away and laid down on my back. She joined me and we both stared up at my glow in the dark ceiling planets.

Stars alone are boring. I had a whole galaxy in my bedroom.

“Why are mom and dad so… angry?” I asked.

“Because Dad’s trying to defend your decisions and Mom’s losing her mind about traditions.”

I scoffed. “When is she not?” 

“Honestly.”

I counted fifteen moons. “Why is she so against engineering? It’s a pretty respectable career to be a space engineer.”

Shea swung her feet back and forth over the edge of the bed. “Well… I think it’s the whole ‘she doesn’t understand’ thing… I mean, she and our dad were both raised super, super traditionally to keep our heritage, and I think personally that’s something to be proud of, but… they don’t know when to let go… I mean, dad’s trying to, but mom’s just… closed-minded.”

“That’s apparently an understatement.”

Shea shoved my shoulder. “At least she’s trying. This proves she does care about you and your future, she’s just going about it in the wrong way.”

I shoved her back. “Since when did you get all wisdom-y and mature?”

“Since I became the taller sibling.”

I gaped at her, then got up onto my knees and started tickling her sides. “At least I’m not flat-chested!”

“At least,” she cackled, trying to pry my hands away, “I don’t have thunder-thighs!”

“At least I don’t have chicken legs!”

She kicked me off of her with said chicken legs and we both laughed our asses off next to each other on the bed. Her eyes caught on the red submit button that still illuminated a small part of my computer screen. Shea got off the bed and leaned over my desk, her hand resting on the keyboard.

“I’m gonna submit it.”

I rushed to get up. “Shea, don’t-!”

“Did it.”

Thank you for your submission to the Galaxy Garrison.

A small dialogue box popped up.

“So, what next?” she asked, looking at me as if she didn’t just fast-pass a milestone decision for me.

“Shea Rowena Gallagher, did you just fucking send me in the express lane to my goddamn future!?” I pushed past her and scrolled along the screen, making sure she’d actually done it.

She grinned. “Don’t act like you’re mad. I know you actually want to go and aren’t doing it out of spite. You’d never do anything this big out of pure spite.”

“Want to bet?”

“You’re the least rebellious person I know.”

“Says you, you goddamn Angel!”

“I don’t think you can use ‘goddamn’ and ‘angel’ in the same sentence unless you genuinely damning something in the name of God.”

“Shut up, Shea.”

The pause in our conversation brought back the sounds of Gaelic yelling.

“Seriously, how long can two people scream at each other?”

Shea pulled her phone out of her back pocket and scrolled through some photos until she came up on one from a year ago: a family portrait.

“Families have to fight sometimes, I guess.”

Our mother with her long brown, curly hair and bright green eyes. She had on a grey sweater with golden jewelry with some plain blue jeans and beige heels.

Our father in a plaid button down and brown pants with his balding strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes. Quite the signature fashion, never going out of style for Neil.

Shea in her black dress that went down to her knees with flats on her feet, so she was only a bit taller than our parents. Her straight, dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. Her full grin and chipmunk cheeks.

Then there was me. Brown hair like our mother’s. Mixed eyes, more on the green side. My lips looked like they disappeared in my smile, baring my whitened teeth and promoting my pixie nose. I was a good few inches shorter than everyone else in the family, but in all fairness they’re giants.

I’m a respectable 5’5”, thank you very much.

The physical difference between Shea and I was astounding. Even though we wore the same dress, the only difference being my red color, we looked beyond comparison.

My hips were large, she was an actual stick. I was busty, she wasn’t. I had stubby legs, she had long, toned ones. My muscle centered around my core and arms, while hers were focused on her calves. She was definitely bound to be a better dancer than me. And that made me proud.

She had a hawk nose, mine was small and upturned. She had almond eyes, and mine were round. We hardly look related at all, really.

And I didn’t mind that. I didn’t mind that one bit.

“I’m gonna miss you,” I mumbled.

“Me too.”

We stared sadly at one another before hugging tightly, rocking back and forth in place.

“I still haven’t been accepted yet, technically,” I mentioned over her shoulder.

“Oh, shut up.” She squeezed me tighter. “We both know you already made it.”

“I hope so…”

“You totally did. Otherwise all of this emotional crying and talking would have been for nothing, and then mom will blow another gasket getting mad at you for winding her up for nothing.”

“All for nothing, huh?”

“Hm?”

“At least now I know that you’ll miss me when I leave the house.”

“Of course I will, you dipshit!”

I laughed and pulled away. “Let me check when submissions are supposed to be accepted.”

“It’s kind of weird that you can submit an application at any time in the year,” Shea commented as I sat down.

“Little bit. But they have a great transfer program to have, like, intensive classes to get used to it and catch up.”

“They really want more students then, huh?”

“Smart students, yeah.”

Shea rolled her eyes. “There goes your modesty.”

Emails regarding acceptance can occur anywhere between 1 and 24 hours. As transfer students must be assimilated as efficiently as possible, prompt scheduling must be-

“Dude, I could find out tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Well, say hello to Maeve Kennedy Gallagher, future Top Engineer of the Galaxy Garrison.”

“Shut up, Shea.”


	5. Inbox

The sun was bright. So stupidly, unnecessarily bright. It shone through my only bedroom window, managing to get through even the curtains. It was so obnoxiously bright that I could see it through closed eyelids.

I grumbled, and tried to roll away from it, but ended up rolling on top of Shea.

“Get off,” she groaned, wiggling to the other side of my bed.

“You get off, it’s my bed,” I retorted, still barely sounding conscious. She draped a long arm over my back and stretched out a leg.

“What? Couldn’t hear you.”

I got out from under her arm and stood up slowly, rubbing my eyes and yawning. Both of us were still in our clothes from yesterday. My bedroom looked like it normally did. Posters of stars and cars and just about anything in between. That’s a lot, trust me, I know.

Clothes were on the floor with an overflowing hamper, a few empty cups here and there, books spilling out of shelves, and papers just thrown about every which way on my desk.

Some might say disorderly. I say disorganized chaos.

“Are mom and dad awake?” Shea mumbled, scratching at the corners of her eyes as she sat up in bed.

“I have no clue.” I started to pick up some papers and organize them by broad subjects. School papers, doodles, sketches (they’re different), and some checklists that I’d long since checked clean. I stacked up the six total cups in two sets and set them down by my computer, then switched to picking up clothes off the floor and deciding if they were one-time wear and clean or abused and needed washing.

“You’re so nasty, Maeve,” Shea wrinkled her nose watching me smell a t-shirt.

“I just don’t want to create more laundry than necessary!” I tossed the shirt into my closet. “Besides, it didn’t smell bad!”

“Who cleans first thing in the morning?” Shea stood up, helping me pick up clothes from the floor and move them to my hamper.

“Look, either I’m gonna tinker, or clean. Which would you rather have me do when Mamaí is mad about me wanting to go to Space School?”

Shea thought for a second. “What about quietly reading a book?”

“Books are commitments. I’m not gonna pick one up and just,” I mimed flipping through pages, “every now and then! I’m gonna read that sucker in one sitting.”

It looked as though she wanted to reply, but instead she just huffed and threw the last shirt in the hamper. “I’m gonna take the cups to the kitchen.”

“Thanks.”

“Mhm.”

I picked up the hamper and left the room behind Shea, taking the opposite turn and heading to the laundry room. I sorted the clothes, hots, whites, cold dark, cold light, one might say it was a meticulous process.

But I mean, hey, if you don’t clean often, might as well go all out when you finally get around to it.

Without knowing it, I began to sing quietly to myself as I gently placed clothes in their designated pile.

“Tha mulad, tha mulad, tha lionn-dubh arm fhéin.”

The quick Gaelic words felt natural on my tongue as the music played in my head, the upbeat tune for a sad song.

“Tha de mhingin air m’aire, nì nach aidich mo bheul.”

I hummed on, the words pausing as I loaded a pile of cold dark into the washing machine.

Picking up in the second verse, I sang, “Chan inns mi dha m’ phiuthair meud mo chumh as do dhéidh.”

I poured in some soap and selected the settings. “Na dha m’ mhàthair a rug mi chuir mi cudthrom ‘na ceum.”

At this point, I didn’t even thinking of the meaning of the words, just remembering the song and singing them in the language I knew so well.

“Tha sac trom air mo chridhe, nach tog fìdheall nan teud.”

“Not the happiest song to be singing in the morning.”

I flinched and jumped at the same time, convulsing in a surprised state of fear while also managing to scream.

My father stood in the doorway to the laundry room, seemingly unfazed.

“How long were you standing there?” I asked, running a hand over the back of my neck and trying to pretend I didn’t just totally freak out.

“For most of the song. It is lovely, but do you recall its meaning?”

I shrugged. “The words talk about a woman who’s eternally sad over someone who she adored who ended up leaving her, I think. They felt spite and took against her in the name of God, and wouldn’t admit they too had mutual feelings. And the woman won’t share her sadness with anyone, even though she ends up to be with child.”

“You say it so casually, but that is not all the song truly means, Maeve.”

“Well, I mean I summarized, but-“

“That is not what I’m saying.”

I closed the lid to the washing machine and stepped out of the room, standing in the hallway across from Dad. “Then what are you saying?”

“She isn’t just eternally sad over them leaving… She loved this man, truly loved him, and they were married and in love. But then he left her.” He seemed personally moved by the lyrics as we stood in a heavy silence. “She mourned him, prayed for him, to her it felt like her world died.”

I crossed my arms, suddenly feeling like I was being lectured even though I just wanted to sing a song that was catchy and sounded pretty.

“She would not share her burden because it was her burden to hold, to later bestow upon him under the equal rights of God.”

I nodded meaningfully, but that knowledge sort of just didn’t absorb at all in my brain. “What’s the song called again?”

He gave me a look, one that proved he knew I lacked any interest in the subject. “Mairead Nan Cuiread.”

“Thanks, Daidí.”

“Don’t thank me yet. Your mother is still having a fit.” His face went bleak, showing his exhaustion. “All night, all about how we never should have let you in the shop to begin with, and how it’s our fault that we jeopardized your future by not giving you a better career path.”

“She makes no sense.”

“Sometimes.” I rolled my eyes. He sighed. “You should talk to her though. She’s very upset.”

“I know she is.”

“Not just angry, Maeve. She’s sad.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I’m gonna get breakfast.”

He nodded his head slowly a few times before looking down. “Alright then, Maeve.” He went off to go do… something and I went off to go make breakfast.

Stop making me feel guilty for not wanting to console my mother, Dad.

In the kitchen, Shea sat with my computer on the counter, refreshing my email constantly. “Hey! Shea, why’d you move her out here?”

“Her?” she didn’t look away, but the amused mockery in her voice was prevailing.

“Yes, her, it’s a girl computer, now why is she out here where drinks and crumbs and stuff could get all in her?”

“Like they wouldn’t in your pig sty of a room?” 

“Shut up, Shea.” I leaned over the computer next to her. “Have I gotten any emails?”

“Not yet, I’m checking.”

“Want anything for breakfast?”

“No, I want to starve myself.”

“As is the dancer way,” I joked, opening the fridge.

“Eggs are fine.”

The radio on the counter didn’t actually connect to any frequencies, we just kept it around because it played our old CDs and cassette tapes. Our really old ones. Ancient. I hit play, hoping for something good to already be in there so I wouldn’t have to change it.

Oh, the irony. Sweet, sweet irony.

Fly me to the Moon by Frank Sinatra started playing.

“Ew, Sinatra?”

“Shut up, Shea, I’m making you breakfast and I want music.”

“Just because you’re obsessed with him doesn’t mean I have to be!”

“You’re right! You just have to listen!”

“Girls,”

Goddammit, son of a bitch.

“Why are you yelling so early?” Mom walked in holding a steaming cup of coffee in a bathrobe, her hair in the messiest ponytail I’d ever seen. She even had slippers on.

Talk about self-care.

Shea and I made super tense eye-contact.

“I was just complaining about Maeve’s music, mamaí.”

Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.

“It’s a love song, Shea,” I flicked the side of her head, and smiled at our mother. She seemed unamused.

Shea continued clicking the refresh button as our mother walked around to a stool on the opposite side of the kitchen counter. “Did you two sleep well?”

We both nodded.

“Super well,” Shea grinned.

“Really well,” I added.

“That’s good.” She sipped her coffee.

You’d think with such a big house you wouldn’t encounter a different family member every ten minutes.

I got some eggs out of the fridge and set them down next to the stove. The pans were all hanging from a cast iron rack, so I took off a regular ol’ frying pan and turned on the heat. The eggs sizzled and popped the tiniest bit as I cracked them straight into the pan.

“Did you put butter on the pan first?” Mom asked. I watched her from the corner of my eye as she analyzed my egg making skills, which are perfectly fine, thank you very much.

“No, I normally don’t.”

“Oh. I just assumed that was the widespread correct way of making eggs.”

“There isn’t a correct way of doing it, it’s whatever works for you.”

“But some ways work better than others.”

“Yeah, well no matter what you get an egg, so.”

“Sometimes it’s not cooked all the way through.”

“Well sometimes it’s cooked too much!”

“Um,” Shea interrupted us, her eyes darting back and forth. “I’m gonna throw out the idea that this conversation isn’t about eggs.”

I flipped over an egg and broke the yolk. “Shit,” I said under my breath, scraping it back into its own portion of the pan.

“That wouldn’t have happened if you’d used butter.”

What a snide remark. What an unwarranted, incorrect, unprovoked remark.

“Butter’s got nothing to do with the yolk breaking, you-!” I cut myself off, taking deep breaths. “You’re right. I’ll use butter next time,” I bit out through gritted teeth.

Shea seemed to shrink into herself, pulling the laptop farther away from us.

“I don’t understand why you’re angry, all I am saying is that the egg won’t break when you use butter.”

I chewed on the inside of my lip. “I’m not angry.”

“You seem like you are.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“Why can’t we just have a relaxing morning,” she looked between Shea and me.

I turned around in disbelief. “You’re the one correcting my egg cooking strategies!”

“Which obviously don’t work because you broke the egg!”

“Wow, thanks mom! Maybe I like my eggs broken!”

“Quit being so dramatic!”

“So,” Shea interrupted again. “This might be bad timing, but there’s a new email in your inbox, Maeve.”

I dropped the spatula immediately and ran over to the computer, pushing Shea out of the way. The subject line said Congratulations!

Smiling, I clicked the email open. After scanning through it, I smirked triumphantly.

“I got in.”


	6. The Long Haul

Again, I was listening to yelling within the same two days. At least this time the yelling was in English and wasn’t between my parents. School Cafeteria.

Apparently school still exists and you still have to go even when you find out you’re switching to a different school. So much complex school business.

I was sitting in my normal spot at the front of the cafeteria with some other kids who did work while they ate. It was sort of nice because none of us were actually friends and didn’t feel obligated enough to force conversation, but I could also rely on them to loan me a pen or eraser or whatever the hell.

In front of me was advanced physics homework about drawing free-form diagrams in relation to orbiting satellites using Net Forces and Newton and Kepler’s laws. I even had all my different colored pencils out to label the different forces.

“Just so you know,” the boy sitting next to me commented through his chicken wrap. “Your centripetal force is pointing in the wrong direction for the given object.”

Back to question three. He was right.

“Thanks.”

“Yup.”

Back to silence.

It made me a little uncomfortable that I’d gotten that wrong. Normally, pretty much all the time, I didn’t even need to think too hard to get the right answer for physics.

I fixed my graph and spun my pen between my fingers. All I could think about was the Garrison. The email said I needed to arrive at the school no later than two weeks from today, and I planned to arrive this weekend.

Only four days away, including this one day.

Too long.

I packed away my lunch that I hadn’t even touched and put my homework back in my bag, swinging a leg over the bench and getting up from the table. Several of my homework buddies looked up at me curiously, but no one said anything.

I gave a small wave, and most waved back then went back to their work. The walk back to class felt longer than normal as I kept my eyes pointed toward the ground, holding onto the messenger strap across my chest. No one was really in the hallway unless they were eating, and they didn’t care enough to look up at me.

When I got to my locker I set my bag down and unlocked it, standing still for a moment with an absentminded quality. Several textbooks that have never been opened, some annotated class readings, empty notebooks, colored pencils. That’s all there was inside.

I picked up everything and lifted the flap of my bag, starting to load everything inside. It barely fit and kept it from closing properly. I had to use all of my body momentum to lift it up onto my shoulder, then over my chest.

“Bye, locker,” I whispered as I closed the door.

“Yeah, that’s not weird.”

I whipped around, recognizing the vaguely familiar voice. It was the guy who sat at my table and corrected my Physics homework. What a dick.

“What are you, a stalker?” I walked past him and he caught up next to me.

“No.” He didn’t finish his phrase. I gave him a weird look. Kind of a, ‘what the fuck is your deal’ look. He shrugged. “You just kind of left and the table thought something was wrong.”

“Oh. Well thanks.”

“Yup.”

We went down the hallways, and subconsciously started going in circles around the halls during the rest of our lunch period.

“So,” he started again, “is anything wrong?”

“No, not really. Just switching schools.”

“Hm.”

“Yeah.”

“What school?”

I tried to avoid sounding like too much of a douchebag saying, “The Galaxy Garrison.”

His eyes widened. “Seriously?”

“For real.”

He scoffed. “No way, after getting a problem like that wrong on your Physics work-“

“Hey, I can normally do those without thinking!”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure.”

Before I knew what I was doing, I shoved his shoulder and moved him halfway across the hallway. He laughed.

“I’m going to head back to the table now before class, I sort of left my stuff there.” I just realized he didn’t have a backpack on him.

“Yeah, totally. Thanks for checking in.”

He smiled tightly, and I smiled back.

“We’ll miss you at our lunch table! Try to make us proud back here so we have a topic of conversation for once.”

I laughed out loud, and nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

He gave a miniature salute and jogged off, his glasses sliding down his nose as he went. I watched him go, still holding tightly onto my messenger bag strap. That had been the very first time I’d ever had a full conversation with any of the people I’d sat with at lunch for all three of my previous years at school here.

“Bye…” I said quietly. I didn’t know his name. I’m sure if I’d thought hard enough I’d remember, maybe from seeing him write his name on a sheet of paper.

I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my contacts, stopping at Max’s. I hesitated, unsure if I should even bother sending him a text. His contact photo made my chest feel icky. It was a selfie of him and me with oil on our faces that we had drawn on each other in our coveralls.

I put my phone away, remembering our last encounter.

A new life waited for me anyway, I guess that meant new people too.

Still. The photo held me.

‘I’ll miss your Sinatra sing-alongs,’ had been all he said the day he found out I wouldn’t work there anymore. I know I’d hoped for more, but had that been selfish of me? Was that his own way of telling me something?

I rolled my eyes and crammed my phone back in my pocket. I swear, if I had to roll my eyes one more time they might just fall out. The bell rang, immediately prompting kids to flood into the hallways, jostling each other this way and that for no reason other than to keep their heads down and speed to their next class.

I ducked into Advanced Physics, waving at Mrs. Masters before sitting down. She didn’t wave back, but offered a very stiff, closed-lipped smile.

Everyone was taking out the homework I had just been doing in lunch, and I felt a strange sense of superiority as I looked around at other people’s papers. Some had notes about ellipses on there, even though it wasn’t quite relevant to the diagrams we had to draw, and some had drawn their diagrams in an entirely incorrect way.

It made me feel better, specifically better than them.

I totally deserve to be going to the Garrison.

I froze in place. That had to have been one of the cockiest thoughts I’d ever had in my life. Under my desktop I pinched my leg and smacked my hand with my pencil.

Don’t be an arrogant and pretentious dipshit. 

The second bell rang and students stopped talking, making their way to their seats. The girl from yesterday avoided eye-contact with me entirely, and I had to admit, that was a little much seeing as her only grudge against me is my social awkwardness.

“Does anyone have questions from the homework?” Mrs. Masters asked, and half the kids in the class raised their hands.

I rested my chin in my hand, waiting for the drawn out misery of listening to questions I knew the answer to. In the margins of my homework were a few doodles I’d begun. My favorites were a moon with a satellite, a diamond ring, and a sketch of a dress that had a utility belt over it.

I grabbed my black pen and added to the dress, giving it some layers of fabric. At some point I even turned it into a romper… or would it be a jumpsuit if it had long legs? Is that how you would describe it? Long Legs? But it doesn’t have legs. Are they leg sleeves? Pant legs? I think it’s pant legs.

Whatever. The point is there are long pant legs.

“Maeve.”

I flinched, snapped out of my doodling state of mind.

“What did you get for number three?” Mrs. Masters pointed to the question on the board. The given object was a satellite orbiting Earth on the same side as the moon.

I glanced down at my paper and went up to the board, sketching a quick set of axes then drawing a line for the force of gravity pointing downward from the origin, centripetal force pointing downward from the origin, and centrifugal force pointing upward away from the origin. Additionally, I gave a force of gravity from the moon and drew an arrow from that line, labeling it resistance.

I sat back down at my desk and checked the work. It seemed kind of right, at least.

“Thank you, Ms. Gallagher. Now can anyone tell me why she has two forces of gravity on the diagram?”

“Because the moon and the Earth both have gravity,” the girl next to me called out.

“Correct. Which force of gravity is stronger?”

“The Earth’s, because it has a bigger mass and more pull on the satellite. Plus, the satellite is closer to the Earth and is in orbit, therefore still under its gravitational affects.”

Did this girl actually need me to tutor her?

“What does the gravitational pull of the moon do to the satellite’s orbit?” Mrs. Masters asked the class generally, but lo and behold, guess who answered?

“It slows down the orbit, adding on the centrifugal force to actually double it as a centripetal force, so Maeve’s diagram should actually also have it labeled as such.”

“Um,” I turned in my seat to look at her, “that’s incorrect. To have it labeled as a centripetal force, the satellite’s velocity would have to be constantly changing to keep the object moving in a circular path centered on the pulling object’s core. The satellite’s velocity isn’t accommodating the moon, so there isn’t a centripetal force connected there.”

She turned to look over to me.

“Are you sure? Because on my paper-“

“I’m pretty sure,” I interrupted, stopping her from flapping her stupid homework in my face.

“Maeve is correct, Lorraine.”

I could see Lorraine glaring at me from the corner of her eye, and it just gave me one more reason to be excited to go to a new school.


	7. Packed Bags

“I’m home!” I shouted dully into the house, stepping inside with rain dripping from my hair. The door shut behind me with a boom, a literal boom, as thunder rumbled outside. I stepped on the heel on my boots and yanked my feet out, my wet socks squelching on the floor. I took those off too. My backpack slumped to the floor off my shoulders.

“Maeve, I need help in the kitchen!”

“Yes, mamaí!” I dropped my backpack and jogged to the kitchen, my feet slapping on the floor.

“Could you get the cooling rack out?”

I squeezed around her and knelt down to the bottom drawer, pulling out two cooling racks. The kitchen was warm and cozy, it smelled kind of like gingerbread and cinnamon. The house was quiet. Really quiet.

“Shea’s at the studio again?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

“She’s been working very hard with Cecilia to choreograph the group routine as quickly as possible.”

“Oh, I forgot about that.”

Mother gave me a sideways look then kept rolling dough in her hands.

“Did you go to work today?”

This wasn’t normal. Her body was turned away from me, she hadn’t smiled at all. She was definitely still upset with me, but she was doing her best not to voice it, at least outright.

“Not today, I decided to stay home.”

“Oh. Why?”

It seemed like an innocent enough thing to ask, but it resulted in another sideways glance.

“I just needed a break. It’s been stressful lately.”

“Oh…” The legs of the cooling racks were propped up on the counter… where was my laptop? We had left it here this morning. “I’m the source for the stress, right?”

“Maeve,”

“I definitely am, you don’t have to awkwardly pretend I’m not.”

“Don’t be so self-absorbed, you aren’t my only problem.” Her tone was snide and sharp. It hurt a little bit.

“Sorry,” I held my hands up and started to walk back around the counter. “Have you seen my laptop?”

“Oh yes, your father and I agreed that you do too many things unsupervised, so we’ll just hold onto it for a while until you can be responsible.”

I stopped in my tracks, turning around slowly. “You what?”

“You heard me, you’re not getting it back until you prove yourself to be responsible.”

That’s it.

“What’s your problem?”

Her eyes widened in shock. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t ‘excuse me’ me! Are you for real? Are you serious? I’m seventeen, I am almost an adult, and regardless if I had gotten into the Garrison I would have been out of the house within a year! I’m already responsible for myself, it’s expected of me to be, so don’t come in here with the reasoning that I’m irresponsible!”

“How can I think anything else when you decide to just leave on a whim!?”

“It’s not a whim, Mom! I’ve wanted to go to the Garrison for years! I literally,” I scoffed, “I literally have a poster in my room with the school logo. On a whim, my ass! The only reason I decided to go now is because of you!”

“You’re not going.” She slammed a ball of dough on a tray, squishing it flat. “I won’t let you ruin your future like this. After all your father and I have worked for, you cannot throw it away for something like this.”

“You don’t understand,” I shouted at her, suddenly feeling like a child in an argument they knew they wouldn’t win.

“No, you do not understand!” Her voice was near a shriek as she paced towards me. “Do you know how hard it is to move to a new place that is changing so quickly you can barely keep onto who you are!? Traditions are what keep families together, they’re what make family family!”

“So love has nothing to do with it?” I crossed my arms, not flinching as I stared up at her. “You just don’t want me to go because you’re selfish.”

“You’re the selfish one, Maeve!” She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “You’re only focused on your happiness here! You’re thinking about your own experiences and new things and different places. We can’t always think like that! I’m thinking about the family, the good of all of us! It’s selfish of you to expect everything to go well for you when you take a risk and leave the rest of us with no flexibility!”

I rolled my eyes and walked back to the door, grabbing my backpack then going to my room. “You can’t keep me from leaving,” I told her as I went by.

“You’re not going.”

I didn’t spare her a glance. “Watch me.”

“Maeve Kennedy Gall-“

I slammed the door of my bedroom and chucked my bag onto my bed, taking out a duffle bag from the floor of my closet. With reckless abandon I started to dump every article of clothing I owned into the bag, cramming every corner with as much as I could. I dropped my jewelry box in, got some sweatpants, my old stuffed Giraffe, and three other pairs of shoes.

There was still a tiny bit of room, and I spun in place trying to find other things to bring. I shoved all the miscellaneous papers on my desk into my backpack, then tore out a fresh sheet and grabbed a pen. The paper glared at me, its blank whiteness intimidating.

I wrote a hasty note to Shea then set the pen down, ink staining the side of my right hand. The gel smudged a bit, but it was still legible. She would be able to read it, she could always read my horrible handwriting.

Life seemed to be hopping onto a bus that was going twenty miles too fast for me, forcing me to decide whether or not I would jump on too.

Already mid-jump at this point.

I adjusted the straps of my duffle bag on my back then loosened the straps of my backpack and fit it over. With two bags on my back and a cell phone in my back pocket, I walked out of the house and past the kitchen.

Mom wasn’t there.

Did she just not care? Did she think I wasn’t actually leaving?

It made me slow down and stare at the cookies cooling on the rack.

Would she be happier if I left? Would she have less stress?

I took a single cookie off the rack and shoved it in my mouth, then walked calmly to the door. She still wasn’t there. I didn’t have enough time to think in that moment as I stepped outside and hopped onto my bike, the rain still coming down. The last hair-tie on my wrist went to putting my hair in a bun.

Petrichor. The smell of rain after dry, warm weather.

I pedaled away.

~~~~~~~~

 

Shea,

I’m not the big sister you deserve. I can’t teach you how to braid your hair and I can’t teach you how to paint your nails. I can’t hand down pretty clothes and I don’t have any cool things that you can show your friends and say your big sister gave them to you. I don’t know if you actually care about any of that, but because I can’t do that, I feel like I let you down.

All I could do was relate to you about Mom and Dad, teach you how to tie your dance shoes and get your bun so tight that it pulls any wrinkles out of your face. I tried teaching you how to tune a fiddle, and I tried teaching you how to organize your planner.

Some things I tried to teach you just didn’t really stick with you, and that’s okay. I want you to be your own person, and I want you to do whatever you want to do. Do what makes you happy. I’m doing that right now, but even now I don’t know if I really feel happy about it.

I’ll keep writing back to you.

I love you.

-Maeve


	8. New Faces

Biking in the rain sucks ass. Serious ass. Like wow. Super sucks. The bike pedals felt like they were barely moving as rain soaked me to the bone. I could feel the physical layers of cold on my skin and in my muscles as wind threatened to blow me off my bike and threw raindrops into my eyes.

It was so cold. I felt so small. I couldn’t even see ten feet ahead of me as the torrential downpour began to sweep me away.

I was so cold that I couldn’t feel my phone buzzing in my back pocket as I stood on the bike pedals. Eventually, probably around the third call, I noticed and skidded on the brakes, nearly tossing myself over the handlebars. Placing the tips of my toes down on the ground I grabbed my phone and answered.

“Hello?”

“Maeve? Where the hell are you?”

“Max?”

“Yeah, it’s me, where the hell are you!?”

“Why do you care?”

“Don’t be a princess, Princess, just tell me where you are, your parents are worried sick.”

“You mean my dad is worried sick.”

“Does it matter?”

I stayed quiet. The rain made it hard to hear.

“Are you outside?”

“Yeah.”

“Maeve, are you actually biking right now!? You could get hit by a fucking car, Maeve!”

“I’m not gonna get hit by a car!”

“Where are you, I’m coming to get you.”

“No, I’m not telling you where I am!”

The material of the bags on my back were starting to seep through my clothes as I became more and more drenched.

“Maeve, please… I won’t tell your dad, I’ll even take you where you’re going, just tell me where you are.”

I hesitated.

“On the intersection of Forest and Bayard.”

“Which end of Bayard?”

“The one closer to the playground, the one near Forest.”

“Right, duh. On my way.”

He hung up the phone, and I held it to my ear for another minute. The silence was refreshing. Except it wasn’t really silent at all. The phone had a light static, the rain fell in sheets and bounced on the asphalt.

What am I doing?

I looked up at the sky. It was dark and gray and cloudy. It wasn’t a happy sky. No cars were driving, so I got off my bike and started to walk across the street to the playground shrouded by the weather. I hid underneath a castle and sat on the mulch, shivering in place with my bike beside me on the ground. My hands were entirely numb.

Headlights shone brightly at me. Jeep headlights. Max. I didn’t make any move to get up, just watching him from underneath the castle roof. The headlights went out and I heard a door open and close, and then Max came running from the other side of the car to where I was. He wasn’t shivering at all as he poked his head through the open door, catching sight of me in an instant.

“Holy shit, Maeve, aren’t you freezing?”

I shrugged, still shivering.

He took off his raincoat and sat next to me in the shelter, wrapping the jacket around my shoulders. It did nothing externally, but it did make me feel a bit warmer on the inside.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, my lips barely able to move.

“Maeve, can we go sit in the car? There’s heat in there,” he really sounded genuinely worried, not taking his eyes off of me.

“Not yet…” I looked around at the playground. Paint had been chipped off of the jungle gym and the monkey bars didn’t look as safe as they once did, but maybe that was because I didn’t used to pay attention to whether or not I should climb things before I do.

He looked around with me. “We used to come here a lot when I was still in school.”

“We’d do homework here in the castle before the kids came with parents,” I added.

He smiled fondly. “I remember when I just started helping your dad out years ago and you were still a midget back then.”

“I’m not a midget,” I tried to defend myself, but let’s face it, I’m small. But like Shea always said, I get it all done in a smaller space.

“Are too, hobbit.” He picked up a handful of mulch and let it filter through his hand. “You’re going to go for real huh?”

“For real,” I confirmed.

“That’s just…” he shook his head, “so weird…”

“Why?”

“I don’t know…” his voice shrank in volume and his deep breathing seemed to echo off the plastic walls. “I guess it’s just…” he paused for a minute, then shook his head, laughing at himself. “Nothing, not important.”

“What is it?” I wanted to hear this.

“After my parents kicked me out, all I had was my job at the shop.”

I pulled his raincoat tighter around myself.

“You and your dad basically became family. It’s weird to think that you’re leaving…”

“I’m not leaving, not like, forever. I’ll come back.”

He looked over at me with what looked like gratefulness, but I couldn’t tell. I didn’t really know what it was. Then he was looking away again.

“I wish more than anything I could show up at my parents’ doorstep and be able to expect them to just hug me and forget all the hateful words we said to each other…” Max blinked a few times, and I noticed he was blinking back tears. “Think about it… If you’re gonna run away like this Maeve, you’ve got to know what you’re doing.”

“I know where I’m going-“

“No, what you’re doing. What you’re doing to yourself and your family and everyone on both sides. Not the literal going to the station and getting a ticket west.” 

I faced him, taking in every detail of his face. He had some stubble on his jawline, his hair was messy and scruffy in its normal way. His fingernails were dirty as they ran through it. He had some kind of stain behind his ear, but it was too small to tell.

“I promise I’ll come back.”

“I know you will.”

He stood up and wiped some dirt off the back of his pants and grabbed the handlebars of my bike. “Ready to go?”

I nodded, outstretching a hand for him to grab. He pulled me up, and just like that we left the playground and walked to the car through the rain. Max put the bike and my bags in the trunk as I got into the front seat, already heating up.

He hopped into the driver’s seat, rubbing his hands together. I stopped noticing my shivering, but he seemed to be obsessed with it. The engine rumbled to life and he blasted the heat from every possible position in the car. It kind of made my skin tingle in a weird way with the mixing temperatures.

“Are you good?” he asked, and without the rain his voice sounded so much softer, he didn’t have to shout over anything for me to hear him.

I nodded, hugging my knees to my chest.

“Where do you want me to take you?”

Am I doing the right thing?

That thought stuck in the back of my mind and hung there, not daring to lose its hold in the fear that I would be fully confident in my decisions. Cause heaven forbid I actually don’t doubt myself. I thought back to the first time I’d ever seen a pamphlet for the Galaxy Garrison and the first time I’d ever looked at an aircraft. I thought back to how I’d built my own computer and the first time I used a wrench on anything. The first car I fixed.

I thought about Shea and how she was the perfect person who saw the good in everyone and wanted me to be happy because she knew I wasn’t really happy now. My parents. I thought about my parents. They didn’t want me to go. Even my dad didn’t want me to go, he just saw that it was worth giving his blessing. Mom didn’t want me to go at all, and it was for reasons that I don’t know if I’d ever really understand. I thought about Max who was sitting next to me looking for a good CD to play while we drive while also waiting for me to answer. I didn’t want to leave him alone, I didn’t want to leave my sister alone, and I didn’t want to leave my parents…

At least not forever.

“Can you take me to the airport?”

He nodded and gripped the steering wheel tightly. “Want me to pay for your ticket?”

I shook my head.

He pushed play.

Fly me to the Moon.

Let me play among the stars.

Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.

In other words,

I hit the stop button. Max looked over at me, an eyebrow raised.

“I’ve heard that song too much recently…” I explained quietly. He nodded and took out the CD, putting in another one.

I was walking down the street when out the corner of my eye I saw a pretty little thing approaching me.

“Cage the Elephant?” I laughed as the car started moving.

“You got a problem?” He was smiling.

“Guess not.”

We didn’t speak the rest of the car ride, just listening to the music and eventually listening to the CD loop when it ran out of songs. Max had one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the stick shift, and I just sat with my knees to my chest.

Driving in the rain is weird. It feels like a different reality because everything’s the same but it looks different. At least that’s my opinion.

The airport was huge and massive, with the rain it looked foreboding, kind of like a haunted warehouse.

“Do you want me to go inside with you?” Max parked the car in the drop off, turning down the song.

“Nah, I think I can do it myself.”

We both stared at each other for a minute before smiling, and I think that was just the closure I needed before leaving.

“Come back for Thanksgiving?”

“Can’t go a month without me?” I teased, opening my door.

He got out too, rushing to the trunk to hand me my bags. I put on the straps and looked at my bike. Mud was still on the tires and raindrops coated the metal cross bars.

“Keep the bike,” I joked.

“Will do. I don’t know if I could sell a bright green and orange bike anyway.”

We smiled at each other one more time, and that time we just kind of looked at each other. Family. Sometimes it’s everywhere.

“I’ll miss you,” he said, pulling me by the shoulders into a hug. I wrapped my arms tightly around his torso and grinned.

“I’ll miss you too.”

I stepped back and waved, he chuckled and waved back.

For that instant in time I’d forgotten about the rain, but I got soaked all over again before I managed to run through the main entrance and squeak my way to a desk.

“Hello, ma’am, how can I help you today?”

“Hello! Where exactly can I buy a ticket?”


	9. New Faces

Admittedly, I’d been on more than my fair share of planes, mostly for dance competitions. This time though, I was alone. That was new. Having seen my parents get a flight and go through security was enough to get me to the actual plane, but now that I was sitting on the seat it was a completely different experience.

A total stranger was sitting next to me, and they smelled like fish. Not even fresh fish, kind of like fish sticks? Kind of artificial and plastic but soggy and cheesy?

You’d know what I meant if you sat next to someone who smelled like fish sticks.

The seat was really uncomfortable. It just was, nothing to do about it. I rested my elbow on the armrest on the window side, because lucky enough for me, I got a window seat. We had been flying for a good hour or so, and all I could see were clouds that almost looked like hollow cotton balls.

My backpack was under the seat in front of me while my duffle was in the overhead compartment. I figured not paying for checked luggage would help me hold onto some money, because who knows when I’ll need more of that.

This flight was scheduled to be about five hours, and here we were on hour three. I had done nothing but twiddle my thumbs and tap on my knees while listening to music through my earbuds. I guess I got snacks and an apple juice when the flight attendant came around, but other than that I sat still.

I’m good at being bored for one reason: I can easily get lost in my own thoughts. Whether it be imagined scenarios that will literally never happen or reflecting on past decisions and all of their immediate consequences, I’m capable of thinking on a two-hour tangent for a single topic.

I was listening to some old fiddle recordings I had, trying to ignore how my ears were popping and the weird unidentifiable fish stick smell beside me. I avoided looking at my watch, because every time I did, I swear, time went back twenty minutes just to make the flight seem longer, and longer.

“Ma’am?” the fish stick man next to me tapped my shoulder. I took out a single earbud.

“Yes?”

“Do you have any trash?” he held out his hand, and I realized a woman in the aisle was holding a trash bag for empty cups and peanut bags.

“Oh, yeah.” I handed it to her and lifted my tray table back up. The man smiled politely at me and I returned it curtly, then put my earbud back in. Songs switched and now it was a piece I hadn’t played in years.

A dark cove with trees lining the edges of the water, fireflies reflecting from the current of the small creek, grass and vines all green and contrasting and bright.

It was a soft tune, and it was slow.

I shut my eyes, clinging onto the imagery I once possessed complete mastery of. Shea and I composed this piece together as a surprise for our parents. They’d loved it.

The recording was of both Shea and I playing. My heart almost ached, but it was so tranquil that I could hardly feel anything other than peace. Slowly, my eyes began to shut as images of fairies started lining the creek bed.

~~~~~~~~

I’m not a germ freak or anything, but being out of the airport where everything had a weird sterile stickiness to it was a godsend. Seven hours on a plane and around two hours of dead time was more than enough, and at this point I was just loathing the idea of getting onto another mode of public transportation.

My duffle was currently on the ground beside me, leaning against my ankle to dissuade any thieving from occurring. I left my earbuds in, but the music had long since stopped. I just didn’t feel like humoring conversation with anyone. Also, my phone died.

But that’s a weird thing too-- the second I landed, everyone was suddenly nicer. Really strange. People smiled and made idle conversation with complete strangers all around me. It was nice, just incredibly foreign.

I did have a bit of a… problem, though. Because my phone died, the email with all of the information for the Garrison transport was lost with it. Well, not lost, just lost right now because I couldn’t use it. Still, point is I’m stuck at an airport. Now, I’m sure if I pulled a social maneuver and asked someone where to go, it’d be likely that I could find a way out.

However, that would be very unlikely. That is, if it were up to me.

“Hey!”

I jumped, an elbow nearly spinning back and hitting the girl who spoke.

Motherfucking friendly strangers fucking scaring the shit-!

“Um… hi.”

A wide grin and big, big brown eyes perked as I turned around. Her hands were latched onto her own backpack straps, nails painted red. She had on a black beanie covering the tips of her ears, and no hair poked out from underneath. A conservative bit of red lipstick and eyeliner coated her face, just subtle enough that it tied her color palette together.

“Are you waiting for the Galaxy Garrison bus too?” she asked, rocking back and forth on her heels as she created our sudden idle conversation.

I couldn’t help but lean away from her. I reached down for my duffle and lifted it, bringing it to my side. “How did you know that?” My eyebrows narrowed, and all at once I was ready for her to, like, attack or abduct me or… something.  
It’s always the ones you don’t expect.

“Oh! You have a keychain on your bag.” The comment sounded innocent enough, she even pointed at the keychain that was, in fact, hanging on my backpack. Her fingers let go of a strap to wave. “I’m Faith, by the way.”

I smiled tightly, just enough to be polite. “Maeve.”

Get me out, get me out.

“Hi, Maeve! Nice to meet you!”

Weird place with nice people! Not good. Too weird. Do I ask about the weather? What do random nice people talk about?

“It’s um…” I coughed, “It’s hot here, huh?” And it was. The sun was horrible. Everything felt dry and crisp and kind of itchy at the same time.

Faith raised an eyebrow, but her smile didn’t falter. “I guess, just like always. I don’t live too far from here, just a few hours drive.” She stopped rocking. “How bout you? Where’re you from?”

“Uh…” Do I tell her? Is this something strangers tell each other? She just told me. Was she lying? “Other side of the country, actually…” Dammit, Maeve! Now she’s going to spy on your entire family!

“Ew, too humid.” It was a joke, obviously, but something inside me felt personally offended.

“Well, here is too dry.”

“I like it dry.”

“I like it humid.” The truth was, I hated humidity. But I felt more protective over home than I did over the sweat and destruction of my hair.

“To each their own.” Faith shrugged nonchalantly, and that was that. “Why’d you apply to the Garrison?” She sounded innocent enough, like she was really curious.

“I’ve always wanted to.”

“Psh, that’s not why, though.” With a swift swipe, she wiped the back of her hand on her forehead to get rid of the lingering sweat. “My family’s been going for a while now, I’ll be the third.” Her smile was proud. I couldn’t help but smile back.

“I guess I’ve always been interested, and I needed to get away.”

“Parents?”

“You have no idea.”

“Try me.”

“An raibh ort Gaelach a fhoghlaim?” My smile morphed into a smirk as Faith melted into confusion.

“Are you speaking in tongues or something?”

I laughed. “Or something.”

The screeching of tires filled the air, followed quickly by air brakes pumping loud yelps of pitchy puffs. I tried not to cringe, but the noise was awful. You’d think with all the technology now, maybe someone could do something about that wretched noise.

“That’s our bus!” Faith pointed and started walking towards it.

This is real. The thought hit me. I am in a new place, going to a new school, talking to a new person. I’ve been away from home before, but this time is different. This time, I have to make a new home.

“Maeve, are you coming?” Faith stood in the door of the bus, the last one on, keeping the driver from shutting the doors.

I stepped forward and got on.


	10. Invented by the Irish

Sitting next to Faith was a lot better than sitting next to fish stick guy. Apparently, all you really needed was a few outfits and whatever personal belongings you wanted to bring with you.

“Yeah,” Faith reached her hand back into the bag of salt and vinegar chips she’d taken out from her never-ending pit of backpack. “The school gives you three uniforms, but you have to have weekend clothes.”

“Kind of like normal boarding school?” When her hand pulled out, I put mine in grabbing two and trying to make a duck bill with the flat chips.

“Eh. If you wanna be boring.” She looked at the chips in between my lips, giving me a sideways look that was either judgmental or unamused. “Let me show you how it’s done.” Faith’s arm nearly disappeared back into this magic bag, up to her elbow in crap. A victorious light sparkled in her eyes. She held up a tube of Pringles, nearly taking everything else out with it. “These are the real bread-winners.”

Is that a thing people around here say?

“Isn’t a bread winner the person who makes the money for the house?” I asked as she popped open the lid. “How are Pringles money makers?”

Faith paused. Thoughtfully, she tapped her chin with one hand, resting the tube between us on the conjoined seat. I was waiting for an answer, but she only reached in her hand and grabbed two Pringles, putting them in her mouth to make a successful duck bill.

Then, through the duck bill, I could hardly believe my ears, she spoke without her lips touching a single time. “I dunno. I guess ducks like read so they are read winners.”

I cackled. I couldn’t help it. I really couldn’t. Here was this random person I’d met five minutes ago, and I was two seconds from snorting in front of them. A literal pig snort on this public transit because of a duck bill made out of chips.

Faith laughed too, the chips falling into her mouth. She choked momentarily, coughing, but before I asked if she was okay she only started laughing louder. At this point, I was sure everyone on the bus hated us.

Only twelve other people were on board, and most of them sat in the back. Faith and I were almost directly behind the driver.  
I grabbed two chips and put them in my mouth, duck billing it up in this bitch. Liz got another two and did the same, then reached down into her god forsaken portal and pulled out- you guessed it- a polaroid. Okay, maybe you didn’t guess it.

“We have to take a hick tour.” That same ridiculous way of speaking without your lips being able to touch. Hilarious, but surprisingly hard to comprehend.

“A what?”

Context clues, Maeve, come on, you can do this. Faith just pointed to the polaroid camera then scooted closer.

“Say cheese!”

“Cheese?”

Click! Flash! Other miscellaneous camera features!

We both chomped down, crushing our bills to delicious bits and watching the white film square slowly print out.

“I’ve never used one of those before,” I commented as she held the corner and shook enthusiastically.

“Really!? I love it. I really like film photography.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah!” She looked beyond excited to talk about it, and I was more than willing to be the avid listener to avoid losing a topic of conversation.

“That’s super neat, Faith. Where’d you pick it up?” Tucking my knees to my chest and helping myself to another salt and vinegar chip, I put on my best listener face. But this time, I was actually paying attention.

That led to one of the most enthusiastic talks about film photography I’d ever heard, and I’d heard little to nothing about film photography, so I guess that’s not saying much, but apparently there’s a lot to be said about film photography. Apparently.

“And that’s the step by step in a darkroom!” Faith didn’t even seem to be out of breath, but just listening to her rave made me exhausted.

Doing my best to contribute, I said “That sounds like there’s a lot of room for other people to mess up your stuff…”

“Oh, you have no idea!”

I seemed to have triggered another ramble on this one time when she’d left to show her teacher a test print, then went back in to make the final, but another student had messed with her apertures by mistake. I already forgot what an aperture was. They’re important. I think.

“And then I had to redo the entire thing. We were out of time that day, so it took up half of the next class.”

“Did you tell the teacher?”

She scoffed, mid-chew. “Duh. But what’s he gonna do, right?”

“Do you think the girl did it on purpose?”

At that, Faith shrugged. “Dunno.”

An awkward pause stabbed the conversation pretty dead. Like not totally dead, but dead enough that it was an awkward pause and not just a regular pause.

Faith had been nice enough so far for a random stranger that offered me stranger food. Could be poisoned, but I’ll die before I say no to free chips. I owed something to this girl, at least to be just as friendly in return.

“I like… tools?”

“What kind of tools?” A new, random as fuck voice just popped out of mother fuck nowhere. What is with these people and conversation! I am doing my best! Everyone’s making it hard!

“What the fu- “

“Hi! I’m Faith!” She stuck out her hand and the newcomer shook it, adjusting his glasses right after.

“I’m Matt!” Matt sat down on the other side of Liz. He had a stupid looking sweater on with a high green color and an orange fabric pendant stitched in. 

“Your sweater looks stupid.” My hand flew up to my mouth right after the words escaped. I didn’t mean to say it out loud, I just, couldn’t help it. It looked ridiculous. Green on the top, a blotch of white, then green again? Is it a sick bumble bee?

Faith was mortified, as if her child just bit into a raw tomato in the middle of the grocery store. Shea did it once. After I did.

Matt pushed up his glasses again, and the slightest bit of relief filled me when he began to smirk. “Maybe, but so does your face.”

I let a scowl take over. “Your hair is like a wet sheep.”

“Yours is like a skid mark.”

Faith gasped, turning to me and waiting for a retort.

I just couldn’t get over what this sheep looking ass, round glasses wearing, Harry Potter looking Joker said. “A… skid mark?”

“I said it.”

The. Nerve.

“Well… you! You! Are… Stupid!”

Faith and Matt both busted out laughing. Even with my feet back on the floor and arms across my chest, I couldn’t help but smile at the friendly, jovial sound. I didn’t feel as bad for calling his sweater stupid.

“I’m Matt,” he introduced again, holding out his hand.

“Maeve.” I shook it with the firmness of a fresh college graduate at their first job interview: too much. Maybe on purpose. Maybe not. Who’s to say?

“So, Magnesia Milk,” he took back his hand and grabbed a salt and vinegar chip. “You never said what kind of tools you like.”

Excuse me? Who let this vermin sheep child on this bus? Why is he taking chips? Why the fuck did he just call me milk?

“I’m sorry, what did you just call me?”

I was three seconds from taking off a shoe and breaking his glasses with it. Fuck taking off the shoe, I was ready to just kick his face with a flat foot. 

“Magnesia Milk. Maeve is an Irish name, right? Milk of Magnesia is an inorganic compound of Magnesium and Hydroxide that occurs in nature as the mineral brucite, discovered by the Irish. It’s a common compound of antacids, which neutralize stomach acidity.” After chewing for a few seconds, he added, “It was the Pepto-Bismol of its time.”

Who the hell just knows that off the top of their head? Why am I Pepto-Bismol? And what the hell does this punk think he knows about the Irish!?

Faith’s jaw was hanging open. I squinted hard at him, but he just shrugged, pushing up his glasses. No idea how, but he started growing on me. Reluctantly, I handed Matt two Pringles.

“You’re on thin ice, sheep boy.”

He smirked again. “Thanks, Magnesia Milk.”

“Okay, you’ve gotta stop calling me that.”

Faith giggled, making herself a new duck bill. “I think I like it.”

“Then what’re you!? Uh… duck?” I grabbed two new Pringles and started adjusting them between my lips. At this point, the salt was starting to burn my chapped mouth, but oh well.

“Actually,” Matt piped up, talking in the special Pringle duck bill way. “There is a species of duck that starts with an f. They’re fulvous.”

Faith seemed grossed out. “That sounds like a bad word.”

“We’ll work on it.” He shrugged again.

Faith took out her Polaroid again, grinning despite her bill. “Say cheeeeese!”

“Cheeeeese!”


	11. Shake on It

I hate sand. Easily the worst thing ever created in the history of creating things. Sand gets stuck everywhere, all bunched up in your clothes, and it’s just unpleasant and scratchy. Good for exfoliating I guess.

Lucky for me, the Galaxy Garrison was surrounded by nothing but sand. Orange sand that seemed to absorb all the heat from the sun to create a searing surface of tiny granules of sharp hot pain. Delightful.

The bus ride wasn’t too long, only long enough for Faith to fall asleep cuddling her bottomless pit backpack with some drool creeping out the side of her mouth. Matt was on the other side of me, playing some kind of game on a portable… thing.

I’d never seen one before, but it didn’t look totally archaic.

“Interested?” He shook me from my unintentional thought train. “Your staring pretty hard. I could show you how to play?”

I didn’t look away from the system for a moment, then I brushed back some flyaway hair. “CPU?” I asked pointedly.

Matt didn’t respond for a second. “You’d rather talk about the mechanics than play a game?”

“You did interrupt me earlier when I mentioned I –“

“Oh, that you like tools? Yeah, cause that’s a real conversation starter.”

“So, butting into a conversation is a good way to make friends then?” I wasn’t trying to sound mean, and judging by Matt’s coy smirk he seemed to know that.

“Well, we’re still talking, aren’t we?” He held up his little game nonsense. “IBM power based multi-core processor set-up.”

“Huh. Kinda old school nowadays.”

“Hey, like, twenty years ago, this thing was prime!”

“You’re a bag lady.”

“A bag lady?”

“Yeah. A hoarder.”

“I am not a hoarder! I am a collector!”

“Mhm. Hoarder.” I crossed my arms in satisfaction, holding back a wide smile. “I bet you collect hubcaps on the side of the road and keep them under your bed or something.”

“And what do you keep under the bed, Magnesia Milk?” He shut off the screen and tucked it away in his bag. “Some potatoes and a U2 album?”

I stared at him for a few seconds in confused silence. “What do those things have in common?”

“Invented by the Irish,” he replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Good Lord, alright, no, I’m more of a –“

Should I confess I’m obsessed with Frank Sinatra?

“I’m more of a… not U2 kind of girl.”

I mean, Frank Sinatra is amazing, but does Matt need to know I have over 12 posters of him at home?

“Not U2 kind of girl?” Matt shook his head, then scoffed, holding out his hand. “Yeah, we can be friends.”

The outstretched hand was weird. I didn’t get why he liked shaking hands so much. Maybe he had the socially awkward gene I had too. But I didn’t shake hands. Maybe it was like, his tick. That’s how you know he’s nervous.

“Friends?” I confirmed, watching his hand.

“Maeve, either shake the hand or I punch you with it.”

I shook the hand.

“Great! Now we won’t get totally wrecked when we get to the Garrison.”

Anxiety and fear exploded inside of me like a stick of dynamite coated in gasoline. “What do you mean by that?”

“You know how it is, there are squads. Engineers, Pilots, Techs. That is, if you’re interested in being in the air anyway.” He appeared thoughtful. “Though I suppose there’s not really air in space so it wouldn’t matter if you wanted to be in the air because there’s no air to be in.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Basically, have friends or be the weird one the entire time you’re at school.”

“Oh. So, like normal.”

Matt smiled empathetically. “Yeah. Like normal.”

Faith woke up with a spaz of all her muscles and a loud snort that could’ve triggered a volcano. “Wha! Are we there! Did I miss it! Graduation!?”

“Faith! Your cap and gown were burned in a lab experiment! But don’t worry! The Mars colonies are doing great!” Matt spoke to her urgently. I laughed, and quite loudly. I don’t really know why, it wasn’t that funny, but just looking at the two of them, Matt reaching over me to reassuringly pat Faith’s hands. I had friends. And I was going to space school.

And the best part. I didn’t feel as horrible about leaving home.

 

~~~~~~~

Matt, Faith and I all got off the bus last, solely because Faith insisted on making sure no one left anything behind.

“I would feel awful if I forgot something, you know? And what if it’s like, a… I don’t know a hair clip or something!?” she insisted, crawling around on the sticky bus floor.

“Do people still wear hair clips?” Matt asked. He stood with me near the front of the bus with the amused bus driver.

“Hey, it could be a family heirloom.” He looked over at me and rolled his eyes, smiling slightly.

“Shitty heirloom.”

“I don’t see anything!” Faith announced, standing slowly. “We can get off now.”

“Oh, can we, your majesty?” Matt flourished a magnificent bow as Faith walked off, going out after her. They both managed a brief ‘thank you’ to the driver, and I followed suit as I hopped down the steps.

Hot. Hot. Hot.

The heat felt like Hell itself burning through the soles of my shoes and melting off my skin. It was gross. I undid my bun just to redo it higher up on my head.

“Huh, good weather today,” Faith commented. She still wore the beanie over her head, but her outfit was definitely more suited to the heat than mine. She had a tank top with a picture of a potted plant with a smiley face paired with some denim shorts. It looked cute on her. And comfortable.

I was still in the same clothes I left home in- blue jeans, a spaghetti-strap top, and a light blue cardigan with orange converse. The cardigan sleeves were tied around my waist. I already knew the sun would burn my shoulders, but I’d rather that than pass out from heat stroke.

Ahead of me, Matt and Faith were having their own little conversation.

“You’re from around here?” Faith asked.

“Yup! My dad works for the Garrison, so we live pretty nearby.”

“Other family?”

“Yeah, little sister Katie and my mom. Dad’s home most of the time, but sometimes he spends the night here with work.”

“Makes sense. My mom and my grandma both went here, so I’m third generation.”

“Huh. Cool. Only child?”

“Nah, I have an older sister. She’s less into the super education-y stuff though.”

“Tortured artist?”

Faith seemed to contemplate that description. “No? More like she’d rather do her own thing, but happily. She’s very happy about it.”

“Are your parents as happy about it?”

“They are now, but they used to be a bit pissy.” She turned her head over her shoulder to look at me, slowing down her pace so that I fell in the middle of the two. “Do you have any siblings, Maeve?”

“Uh…”

Shea. I wonder if she read the note. She might have tried to text me, but my phone was still dead. Shit. What if she thinks I’m ignoring her?

“Maeve?” Matt waved his hand in front of my face. I snapped back into reality, staring blankly at my friends. “You good? Zoned out for a second.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” I wiped some sweat off the back of my neck. “I have a little sister. Her name is Shea.”

“Another Irish name,” he commented.

“Do you know the origin of every name?” Faith looked close to impressed, but also challenging. “I bet you don’t know mine!”

Matt raised an eyebrow as if to say ‘you’re joking right’? When her expression didn’t change, he sighed. “Your name is one of the easiest names to know. It’s Latin, from Fides. All about loyalty and love for God in its original meaning.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You’re a wizard.”

“And you’re easily impressed,” he retorted.

“What does Maeve mean?” I couldn’t stop the question from coming out. He’d known it was Irish, but did he know the meaning? I thought a little test couldn’t hurt.

Matt thought for a second. There was a free bubble of space around us where no one else was walking, so we had out own little bit of privacy amongst the other kids who had been on the bus.

“Well, there’s the literal meaning, which is ‘the cause of great joy’, and then there’s the warrior queen Maeve, so, many associate the name with the meaning ‘warrior queen’.”

Cause of great joy. Ironic.

“Huh.”

“Oh! Oh! Do… Jessica next!”

And then came Faith listing name after name and Matt begrudgingly complying with definitions and linguistic origins. Despite his worn-down exasperation, I could see the pink in his cheeks. He was loving all the attention and appreciation.

“Welcome, Cadets!” A loud voice silenced Faith’s chittering and drew the attention of every kid standing. A man with two, penetrating brown eyes stood in the front of the group, arms at his sides. He had dark skin with a styled beard just on the bottom half of his jaw, covering his chin. “I am Commander Iverson, and I’ve been assigned to set you all on the course for your first week here at the Galaxy Garrison.”

His uniform was a dirty olive green with golden accents, almost lapels, on the shoulders. There was a patch on the left chest that I assumed represented his position. From the corner of my eye I could see Faith nearly vibrating with excitement. Matt seemed focused, but not quite impressed.

“I have selected a model student, also in his first year, for additional help or questions you all may have.”

“This Iverson guy seems nice enough,” I mumble to Matt. And he did. He was helping us, doing the bare minimum and then a teeny bit more.

“Just wait,” he sounded bored. “He’s like Looney Toons on crack.”

“What?”

At that point, this ‘model student’ stepped up from behind Iverson. I hadn’t noticed him before standing with a few other people in uniform, but his was bright orange and white.

He smiled brightly looking at all of us, and to be honest, it made me feel weird. His almond eyes seemed to scrunch up, as if the force of all his happiness pushed them closed. Shea’s eyes would do the same thing if she got really, really happy, but his eyes seemed to do it on his own. Was he always this happy? Is this baseline happy for this guy?

“Hey, guys! I’m Takashi Shirogane, but you can call me Shiro.”


End file.
